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Photos by Daniel Golton
Five minutes of madness decided the second of this year’s semi finals between Halifax 1sts and James 1sts . It was game of few chances, meaning the action that we did see was all the more important in deciding who would join Derwent in the final.
James were unable to provide their usual swift flares of attacking play and could not find a way to make an impact, Ollie Marsh and Alex Tringham frustrating the James forwards as they harassed them kept them away from the target. Halifax took the lead in the opening minutes of the game, Conor Meckin who troubled the James defence with his pace all game, raced down the wing, whipping in a cross which could only be kicked into the path of Kieran Ginnoy, giving him time to pick out a perfect place and bury the shot on the volley beyond Andy Balzan.
The game stayed even, Haifax remaining positive and more energetic, seeming to be more up for the match than there opponents. James did begin to press though and could have equalized through Freddie Ferrao who had the ball in the area but Tringham stayed solid, tackling the winger and clearing the danger. Halifax also had a chance to increase the lead through captain Connor McCoy, who linked up excellently with Meckin to arrange himself into a shooting position but Ralph Gill intercepted the shot, making it a comfortable save for Balzan.
The next five minutes though determined the course of the match. Though James were clearly not themselves and didn’t look like scoring, they were given a life line in the form of a penalty kick for a foul by Sam Kearney on Gill. The James captain, who has converted penalties already in the tournament stepped to level the game shooting high to the left, the shot heading goal wards, when two arms shot into sight and palmed the ball away, Jonny Sim with an excellent save but the danger was still alive, James Davis sprang rapidly to attack the rebound, Sim was back on his feet and caught the shot, to the delight of the Halifax supporters on the JLD, sining his name as he drop kicked the ball to safety.
The drama wasn’t over yet though, and the two missed chances became even more gutting for James when ‘fax’s next attack, a corner driven in by McCoy, was met by the head of Alex Tringham, heading a bullet that fired into the left corner and seemed to settle the battle.
James had been unable to play Davies into the game and when he finally was in a decent shooting position at the end of the first half, he was only able to hit a wild shot over. He made up for the effort with a blistering run from the half way line, playing a one-two with Andrew Jopson and sprinting into the box passing to Ferrao instead of shooting himself and again the shot was hit high over the cross bar.
The second half could not keep up the same intensity, with ‘fax mostly happy to see the game out and James unable to inspire an attack to give themselves any hope of playing in Friday’s final. Their best chance fell to Ferrao who was in a great position to halve the deficit when Davies nodded the ball down to him, but his shot rolled against the post. Davies instigated another chance for a teammate, though this time it seemed to late to worry Halifax, palying the ball through to Matt Singlton but the forward was unable to get a shot away before Sim charged and blocked his effort. Davies came close himself in the final seconds with a free kick from near the edge of the box which just crept wide of the goal posts.
After the free kick the final whistle blew to see Halifax into yet another college cup final, against the same opponents who they beat to win the trophy last year, Derwent 1sts. With ‘fax’s 2nd team going through to the plate final earlier to face their own 3rds, this year is turning out to be a great sucess for the college and the 1sts will be hoping they can dominate the blues as they did James today and take the title for the second year in a row.
Halifax captain Conor McCoy: ‘As expected really. I’m very confident in my team and we just keep getting better as the tournament goes on, James notoriously bottle it, Derwent are usually the same so unless we win by 5 or six goals i’ll be disappointed’.
James Captain Ralph Gill: ‘We did (play well in the tournament) we didn’t play well today unfortunately, where we needed to, it’s extremely disappointing when you concede your always chasing the game and we couldn’t chase it today, good luck to Halifax, we just couldn’t match them today’.
Man of the match: Ollie Marsh